Demand the release of members of the Popular Congress party who have been detained without trail.
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Islamic Human Rights Commission
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16th September 2004

URGENT ALERT: Purge of Popular Congress party by the Sudanese Government Demand the release of members of the Popular Congress party who have been detained without trail.

The IHRC is calling on all campaigners to contact the Sudanese government and demand that they stop the current clampdown and purge on the Popular Congress party, and also call the Sudanese government to release all those members of Popular Congress party and all other unjustly detained. A list of recent detainees from PCP follows.

IHRC is also highlighting the case of Suhaib Elamin. Please see below press statement from the family of Dr Elamin Mohammed Osman.

Background

This current clampdown has been the most violent ever since the establishment of the Popular Congress party in June 2000. Indeed while 2 detainees have been confirmed to have been tortured to death while in detention, unconfirmed reports are being received that another two detainees have also been murdered and another three detainees have been hospitalized. The range of arrests is widening day by day, whole neighborhoods in the capital have been cordoned off and house to house searches conducted. In at least two incidents where two wanted students were not found in their homes other innocent individuals were taken hostage so that their relatives or friends hand themselves in.

Suhaib Elamin:

Suhaib Elamin 27 years old and a student at the Sudan University of Sciences and Technology.

An armed group from the Sudanese security organs entered without permission the family home of Suhaib Elaim in the late hours of Tuesday 14th September 2004. They proceeded without presenting any permit and brandishing their weapons in the face of Dr Elamin's wife to search the house looking for the her son Suhaib Elamin, who was not at home during the incident. Two members of the group chased his brother Hamza who is 14yrs old to the first floor of the house and questioned him regarding the location of his brother.

When they failed to find any trace of Suhaib in the house they arrested his friend, Abdul Latif Abdul Raziq Satti, (who was visiting the family) they then ordered the astonished family members that he would only be released if Suhaib gave himself up to the security guard. Abdul Raziq was then released at 2 am Wednesday 15th September, he alleged that "he was slapped around the face a number of time”.

This is only one example of the number, the many harassment which Suhaib family have been subjected to in the past.

For example in June 2002 Suhaib's father Dr Elamin Mohammad Osman was arrested and was detained without trail, this was followed by his forcible removal from his post in a voluntary non governmental organization. Dr Elamin Mohammed Osman was forced to leave his country in the wake of those events.

IHRC is extremely concerned about the current clampdown and calls on campaigners to write to the following to express their concern for the treatment Suhaib Elamin, his family and please also demand that the government cease its policy of purging the members of Popular Congress party, and other political opposition (for further information please see the Sudanese Organisation Against Torture report at:
http://www.ihrc.org.uk/show.php?id=1058)

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"And what reason have you that you should not fight in the way of Allah and of the weak among the men and the women and the children, (of) those who say: Our Lord! Cause us to go forth from this town, whose people are oppressors, and give us from Thee a guardian and give us from Thee a helper.”